Sometimes, I wonder what happened to India? Are we the same nation of Mahatma Gandhi, Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh that ranks as one of the lowest on Transparency International surveys because corruption has gotten the better of the Mera Bharat Mahaan (My India is Great) idea?
Today, I stumbled upon an amazing poem written by Ram Prasad Bismil, one of India's greatest freedom fighters, 'Safaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai' (The desire for sacrifice is now in our hearts) I've known of it for ages but I think today was the first time I actually listened to what it was saying! I will translate my favourite lines but if you don't speak Hindi/Urdu, I know I cannot recreate the effect this poem has. So do forgive me for unfortunately, much will get lost in translation!
Hum to ghar se nikale hi the bandh kar sar pe kafan
Jaan hatheli par liye lo bad chalein hain yeh kadam
Zindagi to apni mehmaan maut ki mehfil me hai
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab humare dil mein hai
...
Duur rah paye jo hamse, dum kanha manzil mein hai
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab humare dil mein hai
(We left our homes dressed in cerements
We march on knowing that we may have to give up our lives
Our life is but a brief guest in this atmosphere of death
The desire for sacrifice is now in our hearts
...
There isn't a goal that has the strength to keep itself from us
The desire for sacrifice is now in our hearts)
These bits are my favourite because they make me cry! I feel overcome by this infectious desire that Azad and Bhagat Singh had to change India and get independence from the Brits! If you aren't Indian (or Pakistani or Bangladeshi), those names are probably not familiar to you! Gandhi may have won us our Independence but these names are as immortal, in fact their sacrifice greater than Gandhi's. Hate me all you want but I feel that Gandhi made the Indian Independence Movement some sort of a spiritual struggle, a mental experiment so to speak. And who knows if we got independence because of the over-celebrated ahimsa (non-violence) or as one consipracy theory alleges, because her Majesty's treasury had nothing left in it after the Second World War to run a country as large as ours!
Don't get me wrong! I don't think one should kill people to achieve things. I think 'life' - whoever's it is - is precious and should be respected. But what if you are cornered? Isn't it our basic instinct to fight? Does a gazelle sit and practice non-violence in front of a hungry lioness hoping the latter will become calorie conscious and let its meal go?
Non-violence had its benefits. The public opinion in Britain was in our favour. Had we been blowing up trains and public places where, believe it or not "Dogs and Indians (were) not allowed", the colonial whip would have certainly fallen harder on our spine! But I think non-violence created tonnes and tonnes of free-riders (who got independence for no sacrifice!) and it left this free-riding attitude in our blood! Had we been fighting and dying together, perhaps Pakistan would never have been created because it would have been our struggle - something we did together, something we died for together, something we both valued! But no, instead we were non-violently sitting on our asses and debating the two nation theory!
When I look at Russia, the story is so different. Till date, this country celebrates its war-heroes! And these were not just Admirals and Generals, these were ordinary people who ran buses, worked in the post-offices, studied at schools, stayed at home and took care of the children. When the shit hit the fan, while the Admirals and Generals gave orders and steered their forces, these people drove tanks, decoded enemy messages and signals, worked in ammunition factories and took care of the sick in hospitals. An estimated 20 million people died from the Soviet Union in the Second World War and virtually every family was affected. And whilst British and American history books would have you believe that they won the war, the truth is that they reached Berlin after the Soviets did!
And here is where I start to get angry. The Brits were not giving India freedom but they wanted her people to fight a war for freedom in Europe! Rudyard Kipling could just as easily have called his book, "The White Man's Hypocrisy". And what's worse is that India has forgotten that we did this! In my knowledge (and please correct me if I'm wrong), India Gate is the only monument for Indian soldiers who died in WWI and it wasn't even created by Indians but by the British architect Edwin Lutyens! And, I am yet to come across ANY Second World War monument in India!
This is how we forget things- When I did history in school, I knew of only two parties: Gandhi's The Indian National Congress and The Muslim League. There was never a squeak about The Hindu Mahasabha (the present day BJP) or Azad's Hindu Socialist Republican Association etc. Just like the people in Britain and America who believe that they won the war, we think Gandhi and the Congress won us independence through non-violence! We obviously would not have gotten there without them, but why aren't other heroes as (or even less) celebrated? Why was the statue of Bhagat Singh recently unveiled at the Indian Parliament an absolutely farcical representation of the man? Why has Gandhi hijacked Indian currency notes? Don't Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Ashfaqullah Khan...have likeable faces?
When we think we got independence through non-violence, we think we can get anyting through non-violence. And we often interpret non-violence as not doing anything!
There is a terrorist attack - The Government needs to increase security and hunt these people down
A 5 year old girl gets raped - This will never happen to me plus there are so many women's organisations and I'm sure they'll make plenty of noise
Pot-holes on Delhi roads because of cement corruption - Shouldn't the Supreme Court start a Public Interest Litigation?
Mayawati spends the State Contingency Fund money for her birthday - I am quite horrified but let me change the channel and watch something else
The media thinks the Shah Rukh-Salman fight is bigger than the 300 million people in India who go the bed hungry everyday - Hmmm, so do I!
Do the likes of Azad and Bhagat Singh ever wonder that this is what they died for? For wimps like us??? (And I'm equally guilty because sometimes I think things are too dirty for me to clean-up that I don't even try!)
Come on guys - Where did the Fire go? Let's pick a cause, anything at all, even a small one, and do something, anything at all so that we are not guilty of ignoring the great sacrifices that went into getting this independence we take for granted!
Inquilab Zindabad!
1 comment:
I admire your concern and angst about the state of our country and agree with a lot of the thought behind what you are saying. But to claim that Gandhi gets too much credit for what he did is completely preposterous. It is one of the most offensive and widely circulated conspiracy theories around. I don't want to go into a long discourse about why Gandhi was the greatest Indian that ever lived. I don't think that should be something up for debate because belittling Gandhi's role in India's Independence is shameful and historically inaccurate. It is something that fundamentalist parties like the BJP use to pander to their Hindu base by instilling doubt about a "soft, secular" man. And it is sad that moderate, educated people at times give it any thought.
Bhagat Singh and the likes were brave patriots. But they were terrorists. That is what it is. They felt very strongly about our cause and were willing to make the supreme sacrifice for our freedom. That is the DEFINITION of a terrorist. Gandhi bothers some people because unfortunately idealism died with him. He was one of the greatest idealists that ever lived. And he is the best argument in favor of idealism, doing what is right and living by your rules of morality.. I am not saying that ahimsa is always the right way. There are times when war is the only option. Ahimsa is not a sign of weakness but a sign of a superior mental state, an innate self-confidence that is not defined by muscle. The state of the world is different today and one needs to be tough - against terrorism, against fundamentalism, corruption and a number of other evils. That does not in any way make Gandhi irrelevant. Gandhi never failed us. We have failed him.
While poems like the below charge us up as they should and should spur us into action, what separates us from animals like lions and gazelles is our morality, our principles and our sense for right and wrong. The revolutionaries in the Indian Independence Movement were a minor pain for the British and would never have won us independence. They didn't. That is a fact. Not that this is needed to validate the greatness of Gandhi, the whole world looks upto him as one of the greatest men ever to have lived. He lived by his principles. Principles that the British respected because they weren't a barbaric people. He rallied millions from across this giant country of ours and united them like no one else in history. He died for the country too just like Bhagat Singh. But not in futility.
I really did not want to validate Gandhi's role because no one should have to..
I know how the British and the Americans love to tell tales of their own heroism in WW2 and downplay Russia's role. It is pretty ridiculous, I agree but completely different from the Indian Independence Movement.
It is good to be curious and question things but pay your respect to a genuine hero when there is one. We don't have that many. And none as great as the Mahatma.
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